Our last few days in Asia

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We arrived back in Hanoi on the 7th August after a relatively uneventful final journey on the sleeper bus and checked back into Classic 1 Hotel. That day was spent catching up on some sleep and just chilling out in the hotel before we headed out in the evening for a few beers. Via the wonders of facebook we had found out that one of our friends from home was going to be in Hanoi that night. We met Emma a few years ago at the Download heavy metal festival and had met up at the event every year since then but had never actually seen each other outside of it so to meet up in Hanoi seemed a little bizarre but very cool. We met in the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel and had a few beers there before heading for our favourite haunt, Legends Bar. On the way we crossed a large road while taking a video that you cansee here -

. In the bar we sat watching the crazy traffic (yet another traffic vid here -

) before, without warning, Hugo and Jess appeared beside us. We'd mentioned to them when we were in Hoi An that we loved the place so when their train got into Hanoi only an hour previously they decided to head straight there for a refreshing beer and found us sitting at a table watching the world go by! The six of us sat chatting before the bar closed and we headed to beer corner for some bia hoi.

The first couple of stalls we tried had sold out of bia hoi and only had the more expensive bottled brands but eventually we found a lady who still had some and settled down on the plastic seats. The beer was cold but had a very odd taste to it that we eventually pinned down as frazzles crisps. Seeing as frazzles probably go very well with beer we simply decided that it was cutting out the middle man and combining the two. We had quite a few glasses each before buying some rice wine and seeing the night off in style, sitting on childrens' plastic stools on the side of a Hanoi intersection, utterly sloshed and chanting Vietnamese toasts together.

The next day we were meant to meet up with Thuan but couldn't actually get hold of him so just spent another day chilling out in Hanoi. We did walk through the local market and got quite a cool video that you can see here -

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The next morning we got a cab from our hotel to Hanoi airport and boarded our plane to Singapore. We knew we had a few hours to kill in Singapore airport before our flight to Sydney but when we took off from Hanoi it really felt like we were leaving SE Asia and we were both a little emotional. Although the area can be tiring, and at times hard, we had spent six months loving almost every moment, had got engaged, had seen some of the most incredible sights of our lives and had really come to love the people and places so were sad to be leaving.

Our flight to Singapore was ok but we occasionally encountered some turbulence. This was ok until just before we arrived in Singapore. When the plane started descending through thick clouds we started juddering and a few times fell through the sky quickly, scaring a lot of people and sending stomachs into mouths. It was quite frightening but also secretly a little thrilling. The worst part was as we were actually coming into land, just a few dozen feet above the ground and we suddenly dropped quickly towards the tarmac before the pilot regained control and brought us in safely.

After the hustle of Hanoi and Vietnam the peace and fantastic service that abounds in Singapore airport was how I imagined stepping into heaven must feel like. We glided through the various lounges marvelling at how efficient and sparkling everything was and just enjoying the ambience before boarding our flight to Sydney and the second half of our trip...

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Photos

Beer corner
From L-R: Chris, Amy, Lee, Hugo, Emma

Beer corner
From L-R: Chris, Hugo, Emma, Lee, Jess